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Having travelled more than 100,000 miles at sea in the navy, and
having been a recreational mountain climber, I've seen the opposing
views of trash disposal. On most hiking trails maintained by any
conservationist or governmental agency there is usually a notice
posted somewhere that asks you to "carry out more trash than you
carry in". This works pretty well, and most public access trails
are quite clean. At sea, the opposite is true. You go to sea
with a ship full of supplies, and return empty. Everything goes
over the side; leftover food, waste paper, fuel, defective equipment,
not to mention human waste, oops, I mentioned it. It's pretty sad
to be out in the middle of nowhere and see trash floating along
in a rainbow slick of petroleum.
Dave
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Funny that you should mention this subject. My wife is a Ph.D.
Environmental Engineer, and when we took our cruise on WINDSTAR, this
was one of the things she wanted to investigate. You see, she is
writing a college-level environmental-engineering text which will be
based on the systems approach to the environment. As case studies she
will be leaning heavily towards isolated systems; four that have
already been investigated are a remote copper mine and associated
company town in New Mexico; the Space Shuttle; Disneyland; and a cruise
ship. (Yeah, I know, it's tough having to go to all these places
(tax-free) just to write a book!)
... Anyway, some figures we collected from the ship's engineer on
WINDSTAR (see note 71.1 for a description of the cruise):
* The ship has the capacity to produce 40 tonnes of fresh water
per day, but mostly relies on fresh water taken aboard at its
embarkation point and midway through the cruise;
* The ship generates about twenty to twenty-five tonnes of solid
waste per week-long cruise (they are slightly below the average per
capita for other cruise ships). This is collected from the ship, again
at the embarkation point and midway through. This solid waste is carted
to a landfill on the individual island and buried, via a contractual
agreement with the particular island.
* Since WINDSTAR is a sailing ship, its use of Diesel is minimal.
This means essentially no air pollution.
* Sewerage is collected and given a primary treatment. Effluent
water is treated and dumped (usually at sea but once in the harbor)
once per day. Treatment means chlorination and settling; what came out
when they "flushed the toilet" in harbor was unpleasant. The solid
effluent is pumped at the embarkation point as part of preparation for
the next cruise. This is then digested on the island at the island's
sewage treatment plant via a contractual agreement.
Now, WINDSTAR is very new (less than three years old) so it has a more
modern environmental-engineering plant than some older ships. But this
type of arrangement will probably be required of all ships. No more
flushing sewage untreated into the ocean, for example.
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